Dissertation 23 March 2018: Hannah Bower

On Friday March 23, Hannah Bower will defend her thesis "Flexible parametric models for cancer patient survival : loss in expectation of life and further developments". Her opponent will be Dr Angela Mariotto from the US Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National Cancer Institute. Hannah's supervisors are Paul Lambert, Paul Dickman, Therese M-L Andersson and Mats Lambe.

The general aim of Hannah's thesis was to develop and apply statistical methods for population-based cancer studies to ensure understanding of cancer patient survival. Among her conclusions, Hannah reassures users of flexible parametric models of their performance under non-proportional hazards. Secondly, methodology is described to further adjust expected mortality rates which could aid researchers in estimating survival measures by additional, non-standard variables. Finally, the thesis provides a greater understanding of the probable prognosis and the burden of chronic myeloid leukaemia and breast cancer diagnoses via the loss in expectation of life and other similar measures.

Time and location: 09:00, March 23 2018 in the lecture hall Hillarp, Retzius väg 8, Karolinska Institutet, Solna